In a brief statement, the President's press team announced that the first lady of Brazil, 38, tested positive for Covid-19 this Thursday and assured that she is in good health and that she will continue to follow protocols.

The 65-year-old president announced on July 7 that he was infected with the virus, and four days later Michelle Bolsonaro announced that she and her two daughters tested negative.

The far-right president fulfilled his isolated agenda for several weeks in the Alvorada Palace, his official residence in Brasilia, but maintained his skeptical and challenging posture in the face of the pandemic, which he has described as 'influenza'.

Last Saturday he announced that he had a negative test result and met with supporters in Brasilia. This Thursday, in his first public event since his restoration, in the northeastern state of Piauí, he drew a crowd of his supporters and took off his mask for a few moments.

For almost a month, Brazil has recorded a weekly average of more than a thousand deaths daily from Covid-19 and is the second country most affected by the pandemic (behind the United States), with 2.5 million people infected and more than 90,000 deaths.

Also this Thursday, the Minister of Science and Technology, Marcos Pontes, became the fifth Brazilian minister to test positive for the virus, after those of Institutional Security, Mines and Energy, Citizenship and Education. Only that of Education, Milton Ribeiro, came to be hospitalized this month for two days, due to an onset of pneumonia.

Bolsonaro, who warns that the side effects of confinement measures could be worse than the disease, says that soon after his diagnosis he started taking hydroxychloroquine, a drug which efficacy in treating Covid-19 is debated amongst the medical society.